once upon a watch tower
by hallowedhalls
Summary: /:that trail of bloody fingerprints you always leave behind you:/  Monsters are not born.  They are forged as weapons, and Jonathan Morgenstern is the mightiest of them all.  Or, eight things you never really knew about demons and their kin. ::complete::


_Well. Um. I don't own Mortal Instruments, though I do have the PDFs and a paperback copy of City of Bones. This fic, whose full title was shortened to 'once upon a watchtower' because it had too many characters for the title box, then to Trails because I'm just that lazy and needed something easy to text, was written over two months, under the influence of internet withdrawal, multiple computers, a library copy of City of Glass with multiple well-worn dog-eared pages, and clementines, not necessarily in that order. Either way, it's finally finished. Also, this is the longest one-shot I have written to date._

_Warnings: some swear words, implied incest, non-graphic (kinda) torture/murder, and general Jonathan-ness. And yes, he counts as a warning in and of himself, despite the slight de-magnificent bastard-y-ness-ization I put him through at the end. Also, slight Jonathan/Isabelle if you tilt-and-squint._

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**once upon a watchtower**_ (that trail of bloody fingerprints you always leave behind you)_

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"My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right, of course – but it didn't make it hurt any less." – Azula, Avatar: The Last Airbender

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1.

Jonathan remembers everything. _Everything_.

Even the day he was born, eyes wide open and black depths, staring into his horrified mother's face.

Later, much, much later on in life, he'll think she's pretty – certainly not the best out there, but pretty in that special way that gets under your skin and stays there. But right now, he is just born, and if he was capable of thought now, it would be _just what did I do to make her look at me like that_, followed by _I'm hungry_.

He grows up, and understands the look on her face more and more. The look that screams _how is _this_ my son_ and _who is this monster and what is it doing in my family_ and _it's a demon, a demon, a demon_ and _my child is a monster_ followed closely by _what have I done?_

She is the master of poker faces, and he is the master of reading them. She can cover her instinctive reach for her seraph blades whenever he comes toddling within killing reach, cover the startled, frightened, disgusted flinch she makes whenever he reaches up to her, cover the grit of her teeth and the set of her jaw as she forces herself to smile at him and hold him. But she can never cover the flare of horror in her eyes whenever she sees him.

He frightens her. And for some reason, he can't really bring himself to care.

_._

_._

2.

He's seven years old, and Valentine isn't _daddy_ anymore.

Momm – Jocelyn – ran away about four or five years ago, and it drives da – Valentine more insane than he already is. He doesn't know where she is, or why she left, or anything, really.

Jonathan knows. Jonathan always knows when it comes to mo – Jocelyn. And da – Valentine, for that matter, but that's a whole different matter.

He knows that Jocelyn left because he has a little sibling. He knew within months – his baby sister isn't exactly quiet or calm. She's loud and fiery and everything he never was – he can _feel_ it, in his bones, in his blood, and in all the monster parts of him. She's a beacon of golden light shining from her mother's stomach, and it's a little secret that he never told Valentine, because… well, because Valentine doesn't really need to know, and he's got a bit of a vindictive streak.

Valentine lies to him. He disappears for hours on end, and when he comes back home, he's angry and frustrated and sets Jonathan to practice harder than normal. He doesn't stay the night in the valley anymore – always at the old manor about half a mile away from their – his, now – little home, tucked away from the rest of the world.

He takes advantage of Valentine's absence to go through his notes, and through that, he finds out about Valentine's second life as Michael Wayland, who lives in Wayland Manor, sequestered in mourning, with his young son. His son, a little angel boy with soft gold hair and pretty eyes that tear up at the simplest of things and pink mouth that can say _daddy, daddy_ and soft hands that shake when bringing death to even an insignificant animal and sweet temperament that makes Jonathan look even more monstrous than he really is. His son. Jonathan Wayland.

(he even has his _name_.)

It's three syllables. It's a truth. It's a lie. It's everything and nothing all at the same time.

It's a spark that turns into a raging inferno – hate.

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3.

"Watch closely, Jonathan."

Those are the first word Valentine says to him on his ninth birthday. He's leading him somewhere, to a place that Jonathan, for all his foresight and knowledge of Valentine's habits, doesn't know. He follows Valentine down the stairs, into the armory, and after Valentine takes out a few daggers of varying sizes, through another room into the training room.

There are dummies. Human-shaped dummies.

Valentine presses a sharp dagger into his hand, and he nearly cuts himself trying to grasp it at the awkward angle he received it in.

He repeats those words from this morning. "Watch closely, Jonathan."

And Jonathan, for all his uncontrollable nature and rebellious eyes, does, as Valentine takes his kindjal dagger out of it's scabbard, circling around the dummy, a dummy that looks so realistic Jonathan isn't sure if it was an actual person just stuffed and petrified or a normal dummy.

"There is a part on the human body that can sever the heart and the spine at the same time, and today, I will show it to you. You must watch my dagger carefully, because even half of an inch off center will not succeed." With that, in one swift movement, he buries the dagger to the hilt through the dummy. It's so fast, that if Jonathan hadn't had the enhanced eyesight of demons, he would have missed the instant the blade honed in on its target.

He nods solemnly. Standing in front of his own dummy, he screws his face up in concentration, eyebrows furrowing and nose wrinkling as he tried to pinpoint the exact spot his father had struck on the other dummy.

(had he been anyone else, anywhere else, doing anything else, his expression would have been called cute. but he is valentine's son and valentine's heir and he's learning a sure way to kill a man for his ninth birthday. it is not, and never will be, even close to cute.)

He misses.

"Again," Valentine barks, and he does so. Over. And over. And over. And over again, until fa – Valentine is satisfied that he can pinpoint the spot and pierce it with deadly, unerring accuracy.

Valentines nods. "Good," he says, and leads him to another room, a room he has never entered. He walks in, and stops in horror as the door closes behind him.

It's a _man_. Tired, worn, half-wild eyes and filthy, but a man, nonetheless.

"Kill him," Valentine says.

"No, no, no… no… nonononononono…" the other man moans. "Please, no, don't kill me, I haven't done anything, no, please, please, no..."

"He is a monster," Valentine says, his tone cool and even. "He is a beast, and he cannot be allowed to live, lest he wreak havoc on the rest of the world. He is scum, he is infection, and he cannot be allowed to live so that he and his _kind_" – here he spits with derision, disgust – "can destroy the very civilization Shadowhunters have secured."

"No… please, no…"

Valentine knows what he's doing. He always knows. But… the other man… he is begging for his life, and he doesn't _look_ very dangerous…

"He will destroy our world, if we let him. We can stop him, Jonathan. You know what to do." And he does.

That man is a Downworlder, one of the scums, stains on humanity, children of demons… And Valentine had said _we_. Him and Jonathan. Together.

He plunges the knife in.

Blood, he finds out, is very slick and sticky.

"You made the right choice in purging the filth, my son," Valentine rumbles, and Jonathan feels something _beat_ inside him with those words. Valentine is never wrong. Valentine is right, and the world must be purged of the filth that dare walk among humans. Valentine is always right, and he called him _my son_.

So yes, Jonathan just killed a man in cold blood. So what?

After hearing two words, he gets over it.

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4.

He gets his tattoos the morning of his twelfth birthday.

All the birthdays before, Val – his father (and oh, how it feels good to call him that) has imparted a lesson to him. Whether it is about people, fighting, or just life itself, he's learned everything he knows from him, and the most important things have been on the anniversary of the day he opened his eyes.

Briefly, he wonders what exactly the angel boy across the valley gets, if he works twice as hard on his birthday than the rest of the days, but he puts it out of his head, for once.

But this year is different. This year, he turns twelve years old.

This year, he gets his tattoos. He gets his Marks, and grows into his rightful inheritance as a Nephilim, destroyers of demons and Downworlders, protectors of human kind.

It's a long preparation – not so much in difficulty, but in ritual. No matter how strong a child is, he knows, having their flesh carved and burnt will not be painless. There's only so long you can tell yourself _this is an honor_ before pain blots out thought, or so he's been told.

He is strapped down, bound by ropes and ties to a flat surface like an offering. In a way, he is – to the will of God, to the legacy of the angel Raziel, to the duties of the first Jonathan.

Father gives him no warning but the red-hot tip of a stele against his skin before he plunges down, stroking marks carefully and precisely into the drawn lines on his body.

A rune. _Morgenstern._

A rune. _Nephilim._

A rune. _Protection._

A rune. _Strength._

A rune. _Servant_. Followed by two more. _Of. God._

That's as far as Father gets before Jonathan starts to scream.

Because _oh God the runes the runes the runes they BURN_ is quickly followed by _like fucking torches lacing my skin_ and _THIS HURTS THIS HURTS THIS HURTS_ and _whywhywhywhy_ and _no one ever said they felt like they were being ripped apart on the inside_ with an mantratic undertone of _._

"Strength, my son," he hears Father rumble in his ears, stern voice like unbending steel. A cool hand presses itself to feverish skin, and that's all Jonathan knows before alternating strobe-spots of white and black beam in his vision and he –

For the next three days, he drifts in and out of consciousness, feeling like the holy fire of heaven itself has struck him down into hell, and he's burning inside out. He clenches his teeth together, giving no quarter to screams when he can, because he is _weakweakweak_ and the scritch-scratch of pen on paper he can barely hear proves it.

The low thunder of his father's (_Valentine's_) voice in his ears, telling him to get up, proves it too.

He's being ripped apart and burned from the inside out, but by the third day, he sits up in bed and can drink without throwing up, a pounding skull making it difficult to see anything more than ten feet in front of him.

But he walks out of his room and to the training arena, resolutely ignoring the dull burning throb pulsing throughout his body, the pain of his demonic heritage reacting to the Marks of heaven, the ache that will be there for his whole life.

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5.

He sits by the side of the road, and waits. It's a long wait – he has to be far enough from most civilization, but close enough to a main road. This has to be perfectly timed, because while it might take terribly long to get to Alicante on horseback, if he takes too long, it will be suspicious.

And Jonathan can't afford to be suspicious.

So he sits on the side of the road, and he waits. He waits for three days – just sitting, occasionally eating and drinking, and going through his plans in his head, taking short catnaps barely fifteen minutes long, sleeping so lightly a bird's trill could awaken him. It's a hard job, yes – by the time the third day rolls around, he's contemplating just going and hunting down that Verlac kid by himself. He's done enough research to do it, too – he knows how he reacts, he knows what kind of person he is, he knows his schedules inside and out (which are remarkably repetitive, for such a clown). But he has to do this – his father told him so. It's _vital_ to Father's plans that he gets inside Alicante.

He waits, and then it's dusk on the third day. He's about to doze off for another short nap, but then his keen ears hear a distant clomping. The horse is walking – _slow and lazy_, he scoffs internally. Father always said promptness was essential.

When the horse arrives, it takes a simple rock from a slingshot to knock the boy out, and with deft fingers, Jonathan ties up the horse to a branch in a clearing he set up. He binds the boy with runes, pulls out a small notebook and pen, and then sits patiently, waiting for him to wake up. He's waited 69 hours – he can wait a little longer, even if patience isn't his strong suit.

The boy wakes up with a jolt, wildly swinging his head around. "Wh-where am I? What am I doing here?" His eyes alight on Jonathan, and his previously confused expression deepens into a mixture between fright and an ugly frown. "And by the Angel, who are _you_?"

He doesn't say anything, just stares at the boy with his supposedly unnerving black eyes, and flicks out a knife.

"I'm the person whose questions you will all answer, and then you might survive."

Screams fill the clearing (it really was smart to pick such a secluded spot, the boy has a very loud voice), mixed with periodic cries of "I don't know!" and "Fuck you!"

Jonathan walks away from the clearing with a smirk on his face, now carrying a new horse, a new trunk of clothes, a new name, and old blood on his hands.

He leaves behind an un-blessed corpse, a knife, an empty bottle of black hair dye, and what's left of his soul.

(he imagines a disgustingly angelic boy with golden hair and golden eyes lying on the forest floor, bleeding and broken and forgotten. the image makes him smile.)

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6.

It's painfully simple to take the wards down.

They let him in without so much as a second glance – the girls' eyes might linger a bit, as they give a little giggle, but none of them really _look_ at him.

When he climbs up the demon tower, he leaves dents in the metal – anger is pouring through him, hot and furious, as he thinks about that ignorant bastard who calls himself Valentine's son, and dares to take his name, when he's just a nameless, unwanted brat who thinks he's so bad because he's in _love_ with his 'sister'. Maybe, he thinks with a smirk, maybe he won't tell that stupid angel boy the truth before he kills him, let him die in the agony of thinking that he was so sinful in his thoughts of his sister, Clary.

Clary isn't _his_ sister. Clary is _Jonathan's_ sister, his and his alone, and other people don't deserve her. She's been tainted by the mundanes – but he can fix that, you see. If she would just listen to him, he'd free her of all the rust they settled on her brightly shining blade.

It's become his secret mission to bring her to their side. Valentine just wants her out of the way, but he wants her at his side, and as soon as she sees how right they are, she will forsake the ruin the disgusting mundanes and Downworlder filth have tarnished her with.

He's so consumed in his rage, he doesn't notice a little white face looking solemnly upwards as he uses a knife to slash open his palm and bring down the wards with a sweet and dark smile before using a stele to carve an iratze in the palm of his hand. Heaven's marks burn hotter than hell, and he feels his strength rise with the tide of the damned surging into Alicante.

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7.

"_If Valentine knows you murdered me while I was tied up and helpless, he'll be disgusted_ _with you,"_ that infuriating, deluded _child_ says, voice dropping low and smooth, an odd type of persuasive cadence coming out, and suddenly, Jonathan's not looking at a boy anymore.

He's looking at Valentine. Not his father, but _Valentine_, the cruel and ruthless man who so rarely gave out praise as opposed to criticism, the man who always took Jonathan along with him on his ventures. It's Valentine, with his hard, knowing eyes, with his proud stance, with his caressing voice that fills his ears.

(for a second, he wonders who _really_ is valentine's son.)

Then he focuses his gaze, the bindings fall away, and he's once more looking at a weak, upstart brat who keeps on passing out when he's supposed to be fighting.

Jonathan may be a monster, but he's a monster with honor (and a healthy fear of Valentine's wrath), so he waits. It's tedious, and he's never been patient, but at least it isn't as long as waiting for the Verlac boy to come near his post.

It's easy to manipulate the boy, he finds out – no wonder Valentine had never thought he was a problem. He gets angry with a few well-placed words, takes the obvious chances, and does what his enemy expects. Before, when he was faster and stronger than his opponent, Jonathan supposes it would have worked – but they are on equal playing ground, if not with advantage to Jonathan.

And Jonathan has him pinned to the ground, far too quickly to be of any fun. But that stupid little bastard child keeps on insisting he is Valentine's son, and it infuriates him.

He snaps, and he unleashes the hatred and jealousy that burned away at him throughout the years like the demonic blood in his body, because 'Jace Wayland' is not and never will be Valentine's son. He is a failure, he is useless, and _he is not his brother._

With a cruel smirk, he hits a last, precise strike destined to break him – _Clary_.

He raises the sword –

And his hand comes off with a gold curl and wet _plop_.

His wrist is bleeding. His hand has been severed from his body. He's been crippled, and he sees that pathetic, foolish little Lightwood bitch with a grimly satisfied face, her mouth moving to form words:

"_That was for Max, you bastard."_

Then abruptly, it's not one-on-one anymore – it's two-on-one, and he's the one, with a disadvantage on the field to boot. And suddenly, he's not so sure he can win this (but he has to, he _has_ to, or he'll have let down father…) the way he is now. But he fights, and he takes down the black-haired girl who calls herself Nephilim when she's fouled herself with Downworlder taint (he can _smell_ it, smell the vampire on her, and does she have no standards at all?) first, slamming her around because she's the only real wildcard here.

He's going to kill her. He's going to kill her, like he should have a long time ago, like he should have if he had been thinking clearly.

(if it was possible, he'd say he was a little bit in love with isabelle lightwood. but it's not so he's not.)

He grabs her whip, because it's fitting in a morbidly poetic sort of way that the weapon she attacked him with is now in his hands, and heading to end her, and he raises it –

For the second time that day, he's startled by an unseen attack. And there's a knife sliding in his back, _right there_, the place he sunk it into a dirty Downworlder's body what seems so long ago, but was really only half his lifetime ago and his knees buckle beneath him and…

He's dying.

He can feel it – though it's more like a steady numbness. But he's dying and he's failed and Valentine (not _father_) will be so _disappointed_ –

But he finds he doesn't care what Valentine thinks anymore for the first time in his life, because he's dying, and Valentine's not. _He's_ dying, sinking into black. And… and…

And he's scared.

He's seventeen and his life (_if he ever had one in the first place_) is ending, from a knife to the back like a coward. He doesn't want this – he wants to live. He wants to live, and he wants to see his father be proud of him and he wants his sister to adore him above all others and he wants the mother he never really had to look at him with something besides disgust and fright. And he wants to be either a human or a demon, not some kind of monstrosity stuck between the two states. He wants a million different things that will never come true because there's a blade in his back and he's lost so much blood and he didn't really think it would take _so damn long_ to die.

He wants… he wants…

He wants.

(and that's why he is who he is.)

(now he's face down in the dirt and he can't move and he can't hear and he can't see and he can't _breathe_ and the black looks so nice and inviting, and it might be the first thing in his life that didn't want to use him.)

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8.

He opens his eyes.

The first thing he thinks is _it's bright_.

The second thing is _aw, dammit. I'm still missing my hand._

The third is _I'm not dead._

He's not dead. He's not dead.

He's alive.

He starts to cough, and he hacks up blood and what he's pretty sure is a piece of his lung onto the messy, red-tinted ground. The dagger is still in his back – a pulsing beat that reminds him blood is still flowing out of the wound, around the blade. When he touches his back, his shirt is damp and his hands come away sticky with bright red covering them that looks so much different from when it did in the past.

Grunting, he pushes himself up to his legs shakily, almost falling over from the weight of the blade in relation to the weakness of his body. He's never felt this helpless, and he's never felt this strong. It's an odd combination.

With a wet _snickt_, he pulls the dagger out of his back. His back is still bleeding, still gaping open like a demented mouth, but the dagger's red-hiked and black and has the emblem of a falling star on the blade, slick with blood that drips off it like teardrops.

It's a kindjal dagger.

_This particular one used to be one of a matched pair_, Valentine's voice echoes in his head.

Tucking the dagger away in a sheath, he drags himself through the tunnels, forcing himself to keep on going until he reaches the lake. He makes it in time to use his demon-enhanced vision to see the Nephilim drag away his father, his form stiff and waxy in death.

Slumping against the wall of stone, he wonders just what will happen now. He has nowhere to go – the Shadowhunter world thinks he's dead, and if they saw him, they'd kill him again and again until he _stayed_ dead. So what does he do now?

Valentine would want him to continue his work. But Valentine is dead.

There's only one thing to do.

Pushing himself up and off the wall, he starts to stumble back down the pathway. There are still some provisions in the house in the valley, so he can stay there for a little bit. After that… he doesn't know where he's going. He doesn't know anything, anymore, really.

He stays in the house for three days, until he catches glimpses of Nephilim searching the area. They must be looking for his body.

It's a good thing the house is so tucked away, he thinks. He doesn't push his luck, however – at night, once they're gone, he takes a quick dip in the river and packs the bags that were left in the house. He wraps up food and tucks it away in the backpack, along with some clothes. He doesn't take weapons with him – he can't risk being found out. If there's anything Valentine had taught him besides how to kill, it was how to hide in plain sight.

(he keeps charms of iron and silver and electrum with a vial of holy water around his neck, tucks the dagger at the very bottom of his bag, and slips a stele in a sheath around his upper arm, though. old habits die hard.)

Then he staggers off under the light of the blood red dawn, and the gaping hole in his back continues to slowly and painfully knit up.

It's not whole. But it's getting there.

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- end -

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_It's finished. All 4000+ words of the whole damn fic. *dies* Though the last line is definitely one of my favorite parts... I think I've kinda grown attatched to this ficlet. It's all grown up now. *wipes away tear*_

_Anyways, a __**very**__ late Merry Christmas to Draco and Red, because I love them just that much. So sorry for taking so long. And as my inner review!whore insists on adding, reviews (obviously) are well-loved. Drop one - I'd love to know what you think of this._

_Soyeah. :D_

_2.23.10 - fixed a couple of little spelling mistakes and the whole 'end' thing that wasn't supposed to be after the AN._

_6.28.10 - mixed around words and punctuation, added a little bit. i'm shameless._


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